The Seinfeld Method

I love to watch sitcoms. I certainly don’t need any motivation to spend hours watching Friends or Seinfeld while chugging down a tube of ice cream.

But I needed a lot of motivation today to write this newsletter, which was why I decided to write about the method Jerry Seinfeld used to be one of the most successful comedians of all-time.

Brad Isaac, a software developer once reached out to Seinfeld for tips for a young comedian.

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

I kept this in mind when I was lazing around, putting off my weekly writing. I’ve been writing for about 7 weeks now, and I’d hate to “break the streak”. If I want to get better at writing, I need to be consistent and show up every single day.

Now that I’ve published this, I can tick off another date on my calendar. :)